1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing device.
2. Related Art
In recent years, a technique has been proposed for coating a recording medium using an ink jet method for dropletizing and discharging a functional liquid, and printing predetermined information on the recording information by solidifying the coated functional liquid. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 2003-80687 discloses a printing device for using an IC chip as a recording medium and printing a serial number, manufacturing company, or other predetermined information on the IC chip.
In cases in which printing is performed by an inkjet method like that discussed above, alignment of the recording medium, the inkjet head, and the medium-retaining stage is necessary for the functional liquid from the inkjet head to land accurately on the recording medium. For this reason, the surface of the recording medium is typically furnished with alignment marks. In cases of performing this sort of alignment, the alignment marks furnished to the recording medium are photographed by a camera, and the position of the recording medium is then adjusted to a desired location by calculating the position of the recording medium based on the alignment marks.
Sometimes, alignment marks are furnished on both the front planar side and back planar side of the recording medium, as shown in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 2008-171873, for example. In this case, the configuration would be provided with a plurality of cameras in order to photograph the alignment marks on both sides. Because this configuration is provided with a plurality of cameras, even in cases in which, for example, alignment marks are furnished to either face of the recording medium, it is possible to photograph the alignment marks in a reliable manner nevertheless.
Furthermore, in cases of ejecting a functional liquid from an inkjet head in the manner discussed previously, in order to obtain good recorded image quality, a nozzle dropout test is performed to determine whether or not the functional liquid has been sprayed in a satisfactory manner from the nozzles of the inkjet head (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 2006-76067, for example). The nozzle dropout test involves photographing the functional liquid with the camera as it is sprayed onto a test area from the nozzles to detect the condition of ejection of the functional liquid from each nozzle, and then determining nozzle dropout based on the detected result.
Accordingly, in printing by the inkjet method discussed previously, it would be desirable for the printing device to be able to perform both alignment and nozzle dropout testing.